Google AdWords can be an expensive marketing tool for your business when it’s not correctly managed. Many businesses are scared of trying Google AdWords either because of bad experiences personally or hearing horror stories from other people. Google AdWords can, however, work wonders for your business when it is managed in the correct manner. In this article, I will be discussing 4 ways you can tell if your Google AdWords is spiralling out of control along with how you can prevent this.
1. Targeting Incorrect Locations
The first way you can tell if your Google AdWords is spiralling out of control is to check what locations you’re targeting with your ads. This can be a quick way to see whether you’re wasting your budget on locations that will never work for your business. For example, let’s say you’re a plumbing business that works only in the Midlands. If you check locations and see that your ads are showing to the whole of the UK this will mean you’re wasting your budget. People will be clicking on your ad only to see you work within the Midlands, they will then click off your website and look somewhere else, but you will be footing the bill.
The locations setting seems obvious, but it is missed by many and is a vital setting to make sure you are set up correctly. You need to think as a business whether or not you only want local business or if you want national business. Even if you want national business you can still make updates to the location setting to get the most from your Google AdWords.
2. Using Broad Keywords
The next way to see if your Google AdWords is spiralling out of control is to check your keywords section. If you see that you’re currently using broad Keywords this could again show that you’re wasting your budget on searches that are not relevant to your business. When adding new keywords to your Google AdWords account Google will add these keywords as a ‘Broad Match’ by default. This can have a dramatic impact on your AdWords spending and this match can hugely increase your spending! If you’re unsure as to what Broad Match does, the best example is this which I’ve used before:
For example, if your keyword was ‘Bright Red Paint’ and it was set Broad Match, it would mean that if a user searches for ‘Dark Red Paint’ your ad would still potentially show for the searcher. This is because part of your keyword is ‘Red Paint’ and Google will see this, along with what the user has searched for, and will show your ad.
This is the best example for showing how costly Broad Match keywords can be for your business. If you check your account and see a large amount of keywords are Broad Match then you need to see how successful these keywords have been. 9 times out of 10 they wouldn’t have been as successful for you as they could have been and just by changing the Match type can dramatically help improve your overall Google AdWords performance. You can learn more about Match types with this brilliant article - A Guide to Keyword Match Types in Google AdWords.
3. Not Monitoring Conversions
This point is extremely important and you would be surprised as to how many businesses don’t monitor conversions. How are you ever meant to know how successful your Google AdWords campaign is when you are unaware which conversions are coming from it? If you currently don’t have any conversions set up in your Google AdWords campaign then this needs to change, ASAP! If you have conversions set up in your account, you’re able to quickly see how well your campaign is performing and you can then make the relevant tweaks to your settings. If you’re unsure how Google AdWords conversions work and how the tracking code works, here is an extremely helpful article - Google AdWords Conversion Tracking - What You Need To Know.
4. Not Testing New Ads
The final thing to look at in your AdWords campaign is to see if you’re testing new ads regularly. Testing new ads can be an extremely rewarding technique and is certainly worth investing your time in. Testing new ads is exactly what the name suggests, testing new and improve ads against each other. When doing this you’re able to see which one is performing well and then making relevant changes to the losing one. The idea is that you continually improve the losing ad each time and before you know it you come up with a bulletproof ad which is repeatedly bringing in conversions at a low cost. Learn more about Google AdWords ads with this article - Google Extended Ads – What You Need To Know To Stay Ahead!
Final Note
My final note in this article is to never, ever stop improving your Google AdWords campaign. There are plenty of other ways to improve the performance of your AdWords account, and making your money work harder for you. The more time you spend looking through it the more tweaks you can make. Making regular updates to your campaign will mean you’re getting the most for your budget, leading to more clicks and conversions. If you have any questions regarding Google AdWords or need help with your campaign, get in touch with us today!
